Desert Sands and the Best Laid Plans
by Zimre Fa
Summary: Set between EpIII and EpIV. Ingredients: One Ben Kenobi, One Bounty Hunter, One Sarlacc, Two Grans, One Hutt and One planet called Tatooine. Mix 'em all together in sufficient quantities, and what do you get? My debut fanfic!
1. Sarlacc Fodder

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Disclaimer: Star Wars is the creation of George Lucas, and I am merely borrowing his universe for a while, to be returned in mint condition, I promise. Nira Meninn, Ono and Olo Snarrh, however, were born of my own dubious imaginings, as is the story you are about to read…

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AN: Thanks for the suggestion, Zizziana - the same thought occurred to me after uploading chapter two! So I have put in a few breaks to make things a bit clearer.

Chapter 1 – Sarlacc Fodder 

"I have come for the bounty on this smuggler."

Jabba's huge yellow eyes rolled towards the crisp voice of the newcomer. It was a slim, dark-haired female human. And, beside her, hands bound, was a Gran, its three unblinking eyes staring defiantly at the slug-like crime lord. 

Gripping her blaster tightly, the bounty hunter Nira Meninn prodded the goat-headed Gran from behind, urging him into the centre of the audience chamber, in front of the dais. A crowd of onlookers started jeering malevolently.

"So! If it isn't Ono Snarrh," Jabba said in Huttese, the language of his kind. "You should have known you couldn't get away with not paying what you owe me."

The Gran's gaze did not falter as he replied in perfect Huttese, "I don't owe you anything."

Jabba laughed. 

The sound echoed around the stone walls of the audience chamber, silencing its occupants. When Jabba spoke again, the room was quiet.

"I will pay you the promised sum of fifteen thousand credits for this foolish mercenary," he rumbled, motioning with a squat, blubbery arm at Nira. She nodded in agreement, aware she wasn't likely to get much more than that from Jabba, even though the bounty had been set at twenty thousand. 

"Bring him here," Jabba commanded. Nira shoved the smuggler forward, following close behind.

"Remove his binders." A Gamorrean guard came forward to fulfil his master's request, throwing the open binders to the dusty floor. The Gran's arms fell to his sides.

"Now, Snarrh, you will pay." Something in the tone of Jabba's voice sent a shiver up Nira's spine. Involuntarily, she took a step backwards – just before Jabba's gleeful cry of "Boscka!" and the opening of a trapdoor which _had, _a second before, been right beneath her feet. Shocked, she stumbled backwards to safety, as the not-so-fortunate Ono Snarrh disappeared through the gaping hole in the floor with a yell of anguish and surprise. 

There was an uproar in the chamber as the crowd surged toward a floor-grating for a good view. Even over the din, Ono's terrified screams and the triumphant roar of some _creature _could still be heard. Whatever was down there, Nira didn't want to know. She pushed her way through the frenzied crowd to the bottom of the entrance stairway.

*******

The next day, she was back in Mos Eisley, credits in hand, heading for her ship.

From the dark recesses of the bustling spaceport, three unblinking eyes were watching.

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Nira had just finished preparing her ship for departure when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone enter the docking bay. She turned to see a Gran, standing just forward of the entrance, with a blaster aimed right at her.

In the time it took her to reach for her own blaster, the intruder had opened fire. Just as her hand closed around her weapon, Nira was hit in the chest by a volley of intensified light. _How could I have been so careless?_ was her last thought as she crumpled to the ground and fell into blackness.

Nira slowly came round to the sound of a low, persistent whine. _I'm not dead? _She opened her eyes, and found herself squinting in the harsh glare of Tatooine's twin suns. _Where am I? _Looking around, she realised she was in the rear compartment of a landspeeder. It was when she tried to move in order to find out who the driver was that she discovered her arms and legs were tightly bound.

"What is going on here? Untie me now!" she yelled furiously in the direction of the driver's seat. Nira was a bounty hunter. She wasn't used to being the captured one. 

The speeder came to a halt. The driver jumped out and walked round to where Nira was. She found herself gazing up into the three eyes of an angry-looking Gran. The same Gran, she presumed, who had shot her in the docking bay.

"Hello, Nira Meninn," he snarled. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Olo Snarrh – Ono's brother. If it hadn't been for you, he would still be alive, and our smuggling business would not have collapsed. You would've come after me next, right? Well, I'm going to make sure you don't hunt anyone for bounty ever again. I'm also going to make sure you suffer as much as I have."

Nira began struggling fiercely as Olo grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder.

"Put me down!" she demanded as he carried her over the shifting sands of the Dune Sea.

"As you wish," Olo replied with a hint of a smirk in his voice. He deposited her onto the sloping bank of a sand dune and stepped back. Surprised, Nira glanced about her. Then froze. This was no sand dune; it was an enormous sand pit. And, at the base of the pit, with giant rows of teeth glinting in the sun, was the gaping mouth of the Sarlacc.

Olo took perverse pleasure in her fearful reaction. "Enjoy being digested for one-thousand years!" he laughed, and kicked a cloud of sand into the pit. The sand slid down the steep slope, and rained into the monster's open jaws. Nira heard a deep, guttural rumble issue from the Sarlacc's mouth, and then a single tentacle appeared from the opening, and began slithering up the slope towards her.

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Oh no, this isn't good, she thought wildly, and began trying to wriggle up the slope. Her efforts only resulted in more sand being dislodged and sliding towards the tentacle, enabling it to locate her whereabouts more easily. It was now homing in on her with worrying speed.

"Look, it was just a job, it wasn't personal!" Nira called out to Olo, hoping to appeal to his forgiving side. Assuming he had one. Olo simply continued to laugh from his position of safety at the top of the slope.

__

Oh well. It was worth a try. Nira looked down to see the tentacle lunge for her legs. In the split second before it reached her, she had rolled over to the left. The tentacle found only sliding sand in the position she had just vacated. Following the apparent source of the shifting sand, it continued up the slope, causing Olo to step back in sudden alarm, his mirth abruptly curtailed. 

Now on her stomach, Nira dug her face into the sand, and filled her mouth with hot, gritty grains. Lifting her head, she took a quick breath through her nose, then blew the sand out of her mouth with as much force as she could muster, in the direction of Olo's slowly retreating form. The sand rained at his feet, and caused a miniature avalanche towards the tentacle. Now sure of the position of its prey, the tentacle shot out of the pit and wrapped itself around the horrified Olo's waist. Screaming in terror, he was lifted bodily off the ground and pulled into the pit. 

Taking advantage of the Sarlacc's momentary preoccupation with Olo, Nira wriggled up the remainder of the slope as quickly as she was able. She rolled over the lip of the pit just in time to hear Olo's final yell of anguish as he was dragged into the Sarlacc's hungry jaws. 

Nira made for the landspeeder, her progress slow, as she was having to resort to wriggling like a caterpillar. Eventually she reached her goal, and pushed herself into a sitting position by using the side of the speeder to lean on. Then she wriggled into the cockpit backwards. Lying on her back across the front seats, she pushed off the side of the speeder with her feet, and swivelled round into the driver's seat. 

She paused to catch her breath. The burning suns were making this even more hard work than it already was. She was desperate for a drink now, not least to wash out the coating of sand she had inside her mouth. With a brief glance back at the Sarlacc, she gripped the steering wheel in her teeth, and stomped onto the accelerator with both bound feet.

The speeder took off with a jerk, almost causing her to lose her grip on the wheel. She brought it round to face in the direction of the Jundland Wastes, and then released the wheel, allowing the speeder to travel in a straight line trajectory. In this way she sped across the arid desert sands for a whole hour, under the full heat of the midday twin suns. 

During that time, she considered her options. It would probably _not_ be a good idea to drive right into Mos Eisley in this state. The cretins who inhabited that spaceport were unlikely to treat her with any mercy. On the other hand, she needed to go somewhere with civilisation – she needed water badly; she was beginning to feel faint from the heat. Not only that, she needed to find some way of getting out of these wretched bindings. 

She reckoned her best bet would be to head for a moisture farm. They would at least have water, and farmers were generally relatively friendly. Well, they were unlikely to try to kill her and steal the speeder, anyway. How helpful they would be would probably depend on their mood. Anyway, it was her best shot. 

That decided, Nira lowered her head to grip the steering wheel again, and was struck by a wave of intense dizziness. She took a deep breath, managing not to pass out, and yanked the wheel to the right. Then she relaxed and sat back in the seat. Her vision was blurring in and out of focus, and her body felt weak and sluggish. _This stupid planet…_Her thoughts were fuggy and becoming incoherent. _Should have turned the suns off…wish it would rain…oh, my head hurts. _

Closing her eyes to the bright sunlight, she found that her head began swimming nauseatingly. She quickly opened them again. The mountainous terrain of the Jundland Wastes seemed very close now. She struggled to focus on the way ahead. _Need to find the pass…_Nira squinted at the blurry rock-crags, trying to spot the opening that led to the canyon. _Is that it there?_

Nira leaned over to take the wheel again, and promptly passed out. Her limp body slumped over onto the passenger seat, and her feet left the accelerator pedal. The speeder gradually came to a halt, just short of the looming terrain that marked the boundary of the Jundland Wastes. Silent and still, the landspeeder and its unconscious occupant stood alone in the harsh desert, as the sands blew unheeded all around it.


	2. Biting The Hand that Saves You

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Disclaimer: Star Wars is the creation of George Lucas, and I am merely borrowing his universe for a while, to be returned without a scratch, I promise. Nira Meninn, Ono and Olo Snarrh, however, were born of my own imaginings, as is the next part of the story you are about to read…

Chapter 2 – Biting the Hand that Saves You

The winds were whipping the sands into abrasive swirls, the sign of a coming sandstorm, as a lone, robed figure moved across the rock-strewn outskirts of the Jundland Wastes. Stopping just short of a small, whitewashed building, the figure paused, as if sensing something wrong, then hurried on past the dwelling to the west, and the open Dune Sea. 

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Nira woke with a ragged gasp, sitting bolt upright, unconsciously reaching for her blaster. Of course, her blaster wasn't there, but as her hand shot to her hip, she realised that she was no longer bound. She was no longer in the speeder either. Warily, she took in her surroundings, her head throbbing dully. She was in some sort of white-walled dwelling, compact and sparsely furnished. Beneath her was an animal-skin blanketed bed; the bed itself slot inside a rounded alcove. From somewhere at the end of the dwelling, she could hear someone moving around_. _

Did I make it to a moisture farm? Nira wondered. The last thing she remembered was heading for the canyon pass… then nothing. She rubbed at her forehead, attempting to force the memories to return. All that returned was her awareness of the sand now grating inside her parched mouth. 

"Oh, good, you're awake." 

Startled, Nira turned her head to see a brown-robed man emerging from a doorway to her left. He appeared to be in his late thirties/early forties, his most distinguishing feature being a ginger-brown beard. His eyes were blue, and bespoke of gentleness and wisdom – the latter born of painful experience, it would seem from the faintly haunted look about him. Nira quickly assessed that he was not going to harm her, and relaxed a little. 

The man approached her with two tall glasses. He handed them to her wordlessly, then turned and disappeared into the other room again. Nira looked down at the glasses. One was filled with cool, fresh water. The other was empty. Overcome by her raging thirst, she raised the full glass to her lips.

A few moments later, feeling much refreshed, Nira watched in grateful silence as the strange man collected one drained glass and one glass containing a mouthful of sand-saturated water. 

"Feeling better?" he asked her. 

She nodded. "Thanks. Is this a moisture farm?"

"No, it isn't. Nor am I a moisture farmer. My name is… Ben." He lowered himself into a seat on the opposite side of the room. "Tell me, how did you come to be lying unconscious and bound in a speeder on the edge of the Dune Sea?"

Nira narrowed her eyes at him. "I have some prankster friends. What's it to you, anyway?"

Ben merely shrugged. "Just curious, uh… I'm afraid I don't know your name." 

"That's right, you don't. And I don't know your name either."

That statement elicited a raised eyebrow from Ben. "But I just told you…"

"You were lying. I can read body language," Nira said curtly, then stood up. "I think I'll be leaving now." She started for the door.

"I wouldn't go out there," Ben said, getting to his feet. As he did so, his robe shifted such that Nira caught a glimpse of something silver and cylindrical hanging from his belt, but then his robe fell across and hid it from view again. "Not unless you want to try your luck against a sandstorm."

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Why should I believe that? Nira thought crossly. But she could tell he wasn't lying this time. She paused, folded her arms, and turned to face Ben. "You're a Jedi, aren't you?"

Ben was momentarily taken aback, then he recovered himself, almost imperceptibly quickly. "I think you must be suffering from the delusional after-effects of heat exhaustion."

"And I think you're avoiding the question. You have a lightsabre – isn't that the weapon of a Jedi?"

"The Jedi are all but extinct, the Sith have hunted down and destroyed them."

Nira studied his face, finding it impossible to read. He wasn't outright lying, but then he wasn't being totally honest either. She knew that the Jedi were a dying breed, the Empire having wiped most of them out. She also knew that the Empire offered a very large bounty to anyone who could bring them a Jedi – dead or alive. 

"What's in that chest?" Nira asked, indicating a small wooden box in the corner. "You keep looking towards it surreptitiously. What are you hiding?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," Ben said uneasily. Her body-language reading abilities were apparently beginning to unnerve him. 

"Really?" Nira stepped over to the chest. Ben stiffened, but made no move to stop her. She reached down and opened the chest. Her eyes widened as she took in the contents. Then, with a grin, she pulled out a slender, silver cylinder.

"Aha! Another lightsabre! You _must_ be a Jedi. Unless you're a fanatical Jedi-weapon collector. Which I doubt."

Ben shifted his feet, and briefly looked away. Then he gazed solemnly at Nira. "You don't want to know if I'm a Jedi," he said with a controlled wave of his hand. 

Nira stared at him, momentarily mesmerised. "I don't want to know if you're a Jedi." "You want to put that lightsabre back in the chest."

"I want to put this lightsabre back in the chest." Then a slow smile formed on her lips. "NOT!!!!!!!!!" The lightsabre in her hand igniting with a blue-bladed electroplasmic tear, she leapt forwards to attack. 

Ben calmly watched her fly towards him, then held out his palm. 

Suddenly Nira found herself being flung backwards. She crashed heavily into the far wall, and dropped the sabre. It de-ignited with a disgruntled buzz. Nira slumped onto the floor, bruised and surprised. She looked up sullenly to see Ben retrieve the lightsabre. 

"Firstly," he began, "It's not a good idea to attack an unknown opponent with a weapon you don't know how to use." He went to sit down in his chair again, the lightsabre still in his hand. "Secondly, you really _don't_ want to know if I'm a Jedi, because if I am, I hope you realise that I will now have to kill you to protect my identity." 

Nira shifted uneasily, and bit her lip.

"However, as you don't know if I'm a Jedi, I see no reason not to let you go. As soon as the storm abates, you can be on your way."

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Later, as Nira made her way through Mos Eisley to her ship, she made a promise to herself. _I think I'm going to go home_. _And then I'm going to have a think about my life._


End file.
